


No Mother

by EleosEpistrophia



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chocolate Box Treat, Cynicism, Drug Use, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Eyed Jack's, Sex work portrayed negatively, Tarot, thigh riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29133882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleosEpistrophia/pseuds/EleosEpistrophia
Summary: Blackie knows that Laura Palmer is different from the other girls working at One Eyed Jack's. If she were capable of it, she thinks she might be in love.
Relationships: Blackie O'Reilly/Laura Palmer, slight Ben Horne/Laura Palmer
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	No Mother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosedamask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosedamask/gifts).



> This work is marked 'canon divergence' not because it diverges from the TV series itself, but because the events described here diverge from _The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_. Also, it's marked underage as Laura Palmer was 17 when she was working at One-Eyed Jack's.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of girls that come to One-Eyed Jack’s.

The first type consists of the girls who don’t want to be there. They don’t make eye contact, answer questions in monosyllables, and do their best to shrink into the décor so that they won’t be noticed. They come because they need money for food, for college, and in the case of the Americans, for their outrageous medical bills. Blackie likes these ones best – they don’t complain, don’t start trouble with the other girls and, most importantly, when they have their emotional breakdowns, they do it in the shadows and don’t come running to Blackie for comfort. 

The second type are a nightmare. They come in exuberant and eyes shining, confessing every sordid detail of their mediocre teenage sex lives to Blackie until she stops them. They're narcissists who think prostitution is empowering, believe they're God’s gift to the pathetic, middle-aged men that haunt One-Eyed Jack’s. With egos so large, their falls are always loud, explosive and messy. They come to Blackie, screaming for attention and wanting to unburden themselves, and she always turns them away. Blackie is no mother, and the sooner the girls know it, the better.

If Blackie had ever been that young and needy, she can’t remember.

When Laura Palmer is preceded into Blackie's office by her cloyingly fruity perfume, Blackie isn't impressed. Half of her role at One-Eyed Jack's is getting these girls to act like women, and she isn't sure if the tension behind her eyes is from the odour or if it's a portent of the pain in the ass Laura is to become. As the interview goes on, however, Blackie comes to realize that she’s dealing with a different animal. Laura is confidant and calm in a way that her youth hasn’t earned. Blackie initially thinks it's the cocaine, ignores the dilated pupils and dry sniffing because coming into this line of work premedicated is a benefit. But there's something so full of promise in the way Laura looks at her that it leaves Blackie a little breathless, and some horror barely concealed that Blackie knows well enough to make her heart ache. She approves Laura, only in small part because Benjamin Horne had made it clear that the interview was just a formality.

"Something you'll want to consider," Blackie says in a way that can't be mistaken as a suggestion, "is getting a more expensive perfume and applying less of it." Laura smiles, like she knows something Blackie doesn't, but nods.

"I'll make sure to do that."

When Laura leaves, the office seems oddly empty, as if the room is sulking over the memory of a grandiose centerpiece. Because she's curious, Blackie shuffles her tarot deck and pulls out a card.

The Seven of Swords, reversed.

Of course. Everyone has secrets.

Ben and Jerry arrive on a Friday in late August, Laura’s first night at One-Eyed Jack’s. They don’t even do the inaugural coin toss – Ben just walks to her the instant she comes out in her tarty uniform, matching her Cheshire grin with an unusual tenderness. Benjamin Horne is boyish, eternally falling in love with the newest toy and forsaking it once it breaks. Laura, however, he approaches cautiously, reverently, like she is a goddess who might dissipate if displeased. Ben tells Jerry that he can have the next new girl, and the couple disappear to a private room. Jerry’s agreeable face drops as soon as his brother is out of sight, and Blackie scrambles to offer someone else. For a heart-stopping moment she thinks that Jerry might refuse, that she may be forced to endure another night of his taunting and cruelty. When he takes Isabel she’s relieved, and later when she can hear Isabel’s screams from the floor below, she's just grateful it isn't her.

It’s hours before Ben and Laura surface. Ben looks euphorically in love, stares at Laura so adoringly that he almost trips and falls coming up the stairs. Blackie is amused. Laura still looks like the proverbial cat that caught the canary, and she’s fingering a gold necklace that she hadn’t been wearing before. Blackie is impressed. She had never seen a girl wrap Ben around their finger quite so quickly, or quite so thoroughly. 

Her respect increases when Laura never has that nervous breakdown. The weeks go by and Laura doesn’t get into fights with the other girls, leaves every customer in a satisfied stupor, and most importantly, she never asks anything of Blackie. 

If Blackie were capable of love, she thinks she’d feel it now.

A month after her hire, Laura comes into her office again after another successful night. Blackie has just taken a hit, is relaxing in her lounge chair as she intermittently works on a forgotten cigarette in the ashtray. Laura saunters into her office with the grace and grandeur of a large cat, and even if Blackie were sober she still would have followed the sway of Laura's hips. They haven’t spoken much since her interview but this is comfortable, almost expected, and when Laura slips behind Blackie and starts massaging her shoulders, very pleasurable.

“I got an excellent tip,” Laura informs her, husky voice sending shivers down Blackie’s spine. She's wearing the same fruity perfume but a lot less of it, and the scent of tropical citrus and strawberry pleasantly tickles Blackie's nose.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Told him I was a back door virgin. He liked that.” Laura giggles and Blackie feels so good she can’t stop her own smile.

“Did you wince?”

“Of course. They always love it when you pretend their cock is huge.” Blackie very rarely has to entertain anymore and of all the things that she doesn’t miss, the ego bloating tops the list. It was pathetic how men puffed their chests at the slightest praise, cuddled a little too closely at the first sign of affection. Some of the girls feel pity for these men, but Blackie just feels disgust.

She doesn’t know how long it takes for Laura’s fingers to curl under her chin and lift her head up. She had been expecting this. The bolder of the girls often tried to put themselves in competition with her, made some juvenile play at dominance. But when Laura’s lips touch hers it’s different. They’re soft and careful, everything that Blackie has never had and maybe somewhere, deep down, is curious about. Blackie allows Laura to lead, to take what she needs, and Laura deepens the kiss, lapping at Blackie's mouth with pleasurable strokes of her tongue. Blackie imagines that they must look like yin and yang, necks curling around each other, and for the first time in her life she feels beautiful. 

Laura eventually breaks the kiss and comes around, straddling Blackie’s thighs before leaning in again and planting her hand on the side of Blackie's head. When her other one reaches into Blackie’s dress to cup a breast, Blackie grabs the wrist and squeezes it in warning. She doesn’t like to be touched, hasn’t since she was a little girl paying for her mother’s drug habit. Laura doesn't startle, keeps the momentum going in the roll of her hips. When Blackie releases her hand Laura re-positions herself, puts hands on either side of Blackie's hips as she leans in deeper to align their bodies together. Blackie tents a leg and tenses her thigh to give Laura something hard to grind against. When Blackie begins bouncing her leg in time to Laura's hips she's rewarded with a quick gasp and a quickening of movements. They fall into a rhythm, a beautiful melody that Blackie doesn't want to end. Laura lets out a final gasp as her hips strike staccato and Blackie can almost hear symbols clash when Laura collapses against her. She doesn’t embrace Laura, but allows her to cuddle beneath her chin as she finishes off the last dregs of the cigarette. Her lips are tacky with Laura’s gloss, but somehow that doesn’t bother her.

“Your tarot deck,” Laura finally murmurs, and Blackie follows her gaze to the cards on the edge of the desk.

“What about them?” Laura pushes herself up on the arms of the hair and sashays over to pick up the cards. If it had been anyone else, Blackie would have fired her on the spot. But there’s something sensual, erotic about how carefully Laura handles the deck, stroking the cards with her fingertips and reverently turning them over. The cards don’t seem to protest at her touch, so Blackie sees no reason to raise a fuss.

“Do a reading for me,” Laura says, coming to a squat in front of Blackie.

“Why don’t you do a reading?” Blackie suggests, and smiles when Laura looks baffled. “Keep it simple. Just think about whatever question you want an answer to, and draw one card. I’ll tell you what it means.” Blackie doesn’t have the coherency to pick out a story from a full spread right now, and the sensation of Laura touching her deck is too pleasurable to give up.

Laura closes her eyes, brow furrowed with concentration, and begins to mix the cards in her hands. It’s clumsy but gentle, and after a few minutes she reassembles the deck back into one stack before turning over the top card. She looks at it, studying the art, before showing Blackie.

“The eight of cups.” Blackie nods approving, tracing the outline of the cups with her nail. “Avoidance. Do you see how the man has his back turned to the cups? The cups represent the troublesome aspects of his life, things that he's choosing to walk away from rather than face. Except, you see how the cups are in the foreground? It means that they will always be forefront in his life, his mind, he can’t escape the cups. If he doesn’t face them head on, they will continue to haunt him.” Laura looks up at her for a moment, searching Blackie's face, before breaking out into a giggle so high and loud that it's almost hysterical.

“What?” Blackie asks, curling her lips.

“It’s just… I asked the cards who you were. But they told my story.”

Blackie and Laura continue like that for a few months – escapades in Blackie’s office at Laura's discretion. When she smells that cheap strawberry perfume Blackie smiles, feels herself come alive in a way she thought was never hers to experience. She never allows Laura to touch her, but her own hands roam under Laura’s scanty uniform, stroking and caressing the soft flesh she finds. Sometimes Laura demands that Blackie dig her nails into the skin until welts appear, until blood weeps down her body, and Blackie doesn't understand but she does it anyway. Blackie never orgasms, but sex has long been cheap and tawdry to her. Instead she floats in that heady feeling of erotic desire that ebbs and flows like the tide. Even after Laura comes against her body, Blackie continues riding those waves until she gently comes back down, satisfied in a way that no orgasm has ever left her. In the afterglow they never talk of anything of consequence, and Blackie thinks that this might be the most uncomplicated, pure thing she's ever had in her life.

It’s sometime in October when Laura enters her office one last time. Instead of her usual larger-than-life, coke-fueled confidence she looks drawn and paper-thin, shoulders drooping like Atlas. Blackie sluggishly motions her to come to her desk, and when Laura kneels before her she takes Laura’s face in her hands.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, and Laura nuzzles into her palm as mascara-laden tears roll down her cheeks.

“Everything,” she replies. Blackie is no mother, and even if she knew the right words she would know _how_ to say them , so she leans down and presses a gentle kiss into Laura’s lips. Laura’s mouth opens eagerly, and Blackie can taste the sea. For once Laura’s hands don’t wander – they stay on Blackie’s knees as she leans up, a supplicant for the comfort Blackie can't provide. 

She breaks the kiss and looks at Laura, sweeping an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Laura breathes deeply, collects herself, before looking over at the familiar deck of cards.

“Do a reading for me? Please?” Blackie nods and reaches across the desk. Laura stands and takes the smouldering cigarette out of the ashtray, puffing on it like a lifeline. Blackie pauses for a moment with the deck in her hands, lets the familiar, comforting energy run through her before handing it to Laura.

“Shuffle them until you feel it’s time to stop.” Holding the cigarette between her lips, Laura’s hands tremble and she almost drops the deck, but Blackie just watches her patiently. “Now cut the deck into three piles.” Vibrating with nervous energy, Laura does so almost thoughtlessly, slamming the uneven piles on the desk. “Turn over each top card, from the side, not the top." Laura follows her instructions and watches Blackie intently as she surveys the spread.

"What does it say?" Laura's voice is rough, the velvety richness giving way to a smoker's sandpaper. 

“This is strange,” Blackie murmurs, reaching down and tapping each card gently.

“How so?” Laura asks, exhaling as she stubs out the cigarette.

“They’re all major arcana.”

“What does that mean?” Blackie studies the card for another moment.

“It means you have a very large destiny for such a little girl.” The energy is almost thrumming through the cards and Blackie knows it’s the truth. “There’s a lot of shame, guilt in these cards. The first is Justice, reversed. That is your past. There are things you’ve done, terrible things that you’ve never had to face the consequences of, that keep you up at night. But the second card is The Moon. This is your present, and it has to do with your perceptions. Whether it’s true or not, your sins loom large, they seem so big as to be unforgivable. They bark at you like sheep dogs, herding you down a dark path.” Blackie is dizzy. She can’t remember which of them the reading was for.

“And the last one?” Laura’s voice is small, almost a whisper.

“The World,” Black says in a cathartic breath. “This is the final card in the deck, and your future. It represents the end of the journey. You are made whole. Every part comes together. There are no debts to pay, no dues to collect – you arrive at a place of complete peace and harmony, with yourself and the universe.” Blackie knows that this card is not for her. In all of her years of practice it has never come up in a personal reading, not even reversed. She would have thought she'd be jealous but there’s some wellspring of hope, long abandoned, that rises in her, and when she looks at Laura she wants so badly to share the feeling that it hurts. But Laura just shakes her head, glaring at Blackie with betrayed eyes before taking her hand and swiping the piles off the desk. The cards scatter across the room, and something in Blackie cracks.

“Don’t quit your day job. Or, whatever the fuck this is.” Laura laughs cruelly, a little high and hysterical, and Blackie suddenly smells a hint of burnt oil. "Not like you could. What else do you have on your resumé? What else have you ever been _good_ at? I can't see you flipping burgers at a diner. You walk around like you're better than us, but at least whoring is a blimp in our lives. You know what? Maybe the card is right, because I can at least leave. You can't - you're stuck here until you kill yourself with an overdose. I hope it's quick, Blackie." Laura lets out another laugh, and for a brief moment she changes. Her skin turns as white as chalk as her eyes go red and her incisors lengthen. Blackie gasps and pushes back in her chair, Laura's laughter ricocheting around the room. Then, it's just the two of them again, and Laura is walking out of the room, and Blackie doesn't know if she's grateful or heartbroken.

Laura doesn’t come back to One Eyed Jack’s. Blackie doesn’t touch her cards. She's afraid they've been tainted, whether by Laura's hand or her own she doesn't know. It isn’t until almost four months later, when she hears of Laura’s death, that she finally picks them up. She shuffles, the weight and motion familiar and soothing, and when she turns over The World she stops. She knows the card still isn't meant for her - it never was and never will be. Yet there's a feeling of peace that embraces her, balmy and warm, and the tropical scent of strawberry perfume hangs in the air.


End file.
